Thursday, October 27, 2005

Lederer vs. Dannenmann

What a jackass. I guess this what what Howard Lederer was talking about on this week's "Learn from the Pros" on Fox Sports when he mentioned that he went from $100K to $500K very quickly on the TV featured table, where he spent about 12 hours playing dodge the donkey. Everyone wants to bust a pro. Seriously, some of the amateur play in this particular WSOP offering was straight out of the Full Tilt Bounty Bustout Bonanza tournaments.

Though his behavior afterwards left much to be desired, I think Dannenman's move with the 68 offsuit was borderline genius. It's something I could see Lederer himself attempting when a clearly frustrated opponent bet small on possibly the scariest flop in the deck. Dannenman's cell phone speech, however, demonstrated some of the worst douchebaggery that I've seen yet in televised poker.

I think what makes it so much worse, is that it's Lederer. Placid, cerebral, Howard Lederer, who looks like your Dad or your shy older brother. A consummate professional who would never stoop to those levels, whatever the situation. A man Steve Dannenman, no doubt, has learned a lot from. I'm so curious as to the actual length of time from the end of the hand to when he got up to make the call. I doubt it was as instantaneous as ESPN made it appear. And he HAD to know he was miked. It's not too hard to forget that big square thing tucked into the back of your pants with a wire swishing around inside your shirt and clipped to your collar. He certainly knew he was on camera.

We have a lot more to see from Mr. Dannenman in the second half of the main event, though I'm thinking this is just a preview of more donktastic behavior. I wonder, at which point in the tournament did he decide to start pounding Bloody Marys?

2 comments:

you know, i don't know Dannenmann from Adam, but I instantly hated his guts when I saw that stupid phone call he made.

my favorite sequence so far has been that bit with phil ivey. i didn't see the exact play, but his opponent's hands were shaking so bad that ivey actually thought he was doing it on purpose. when he had ascertained that the guy was a nervous wreck, he said, "You can stop now," and promptly folded the hand.